


The Gun Drawer (Ch10)

by CarmillaCarmine



Series: The Memoirs of Dr. John H. Watson [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock what have you done, Suicidal John, TJLC | The Johnlock Conspiracy, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 16:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16790257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarmillaCarmine/pseuds/CarmillaCarmine
Summary: A dive into John’s chaotic mind as he reminisces on the first 18 months after Sherlock’s fall.Takes place after the events of The Reichenbach Fall - S2 E3





	The Gun Drawer (Ch10)

**Author's Note:**

> This is post-Reichenbach John who is leaning towards self-harm. Please stop here if it's a trigger for you.
> 
> Part 10 of "deleted scenes" style fic [The Memoirs of Dr. John H. Watson](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1158497)  
> All parts can be read as stand-alone stories but read better together. The Memoirs fit between or during episodes of the Sherlock TV show.
> 
> If you're reading it as a standalone, know that John and Sherlock had been in a sexual relationship since after ASiB but had never considered it as being a couple. The rest is as in the show. 
> 
> Special thanks to my beta @MsScarlet and @[The_Persian_Slipper](https://thepersianslipper.tumblr.com/)  
> for additional notes

“My life used to be full of everything. Now if you aren’t with me I haven’t a thing in the world.”   
\- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms 

The ear-splitting sound of artillery fire didn’t faze John. Mostly because he rather welcomed it, wanted this artillery fire to tear him apart and obliterate him completely. How disappointing that all he received was rain thudding on the windows of an unfamiliar room in a Sherlock-less London. His previous home at Baker Street was not a place for him anymore. 

He was sitting on his bed, one of the four pieces of furniture in his room. It was fairly easy to reach to the desk drawer from where he was sitting, and he took the opportunity to open it yet again. The old drawer made a squeaky sound as it opened, the same noise it had made every time he had opened and closed it in the past several weeks. 

John reached for the gun nestled in there, but instead of taking it, he traced his fingertips over the handle. It would be so easy and painless. Certainly, he would hurt less than he was hurting now. It would be a cowardly thing to do, but he was tempted. That’s why he was sitting on the bed actually, it would be better to fall on it rather than if he were sitting on the chair by the desk. Then again, it didn’t really matter as he wouldn’t feel it anyway, would he? Yes, it would be very easy. 

He wondered how long it would take for someone to find him. If he timed it right; came straight home from his half-day at the clinic, did it when most of his neighbours were out at work and used a silencer to make the sound less obvious... Then it would take quite long to find him. 

Would he already have started to decompose? 

Maybe he’d be unlucky and someone would be home too, hear the shot and call 999. He didn’t want that. He wanted to lie in peace, to not be disturbed. No one close to him knew he rented this place, not his friends, not his family. He didn’t want them to come and bitch about how he should move on with his life. He despised the whispers that stopped the moment he entered a room. He hated how no one mentioned Sherlock to him. Sherlock’s name was like Voldemort’s to them, as if his name alone would send John into an apoplexy or fury. No one spoke Sherlock’s name in John’s presence, but he was the permanent elephant in the room everywhere John went. 

John slid the drawer closed. One more day. He shrugged his jacket on, returned to the drawer for the gun and left the room. Even as he left the old building, he knew he couldn’t leave his sorrow behind. He didn’t bother with an umbrella. The wind was so strong that it was raining sideways and the umbrella wouldn’t be much use anyway. He should put his collar up, he thought. He decided against it. 

The tube wasn’t crowded midday Wednesday. You could probably travel with a harpoon and fit in perfectly. 

“Damn the harpoon!” 

He only realized that he yelled the words out loud when the few people around him started moving further away. He wasn’t fit for public appearances, but he couldn’t face taking a cab either. Last time he’d done that, he had kept glancing to his side, and the empty space next to him echoed the hollow space in his chest too much to endure it without heaving from the pain. John decided to get off a few stops early. Maybe the rain would wash his thoughts away. 

He walked for about half an hour before he reached his destination. He came to this place to talk to Sherlock, but he couldn’t bring himself to go through the gate immediately. John held onto the cold, wet iron of the gate and let his forehead touch it in hopes of cooling his mind. Freezing his mind to the point of hibernation. 

“Are you alright?” asked a pleasant female voice next to him. John sighed. He didn’t want anyone, even a stranger, to see the pain that he was sure was clear on his features. 

“Yeah,” he croaked and had to clear his throat before he gave it another shot. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you.” He waited to hear her steps retreating before he finally left the domain of the living and entered the cemetery grounds. 

Several minutes later he was sitting on wet grass with his back to the cool black marble headstone. It was still bucketing down and there hasn’t been a dry thread left on John now. He huddled into his jacket instinctively but he relished the tremor of his hands and the clattering of his teeth from the cold. 

“I hate you, you know,” he said softly letting his head fall back to touch the marble. “I wish I’d never met you. It would have been a lot easier.” John remembered himself walking in the park, heavily leaning on his cane when Mike Stamford had called his name. He could have just kept walking, pretending he hadn’t recognised Mike. Life would be a lot different today. Or maybe not so different after all; the same dull existence but with a lot less heartache. 

“It’s not okay, I’m not okay,” _I never_ _will_ _be_ _again_. 

John wrapped his arms around his bent legs and rested his forehead on his knees. No one saw his shoulders shaking, no one heard his sharp intakes of breath, no one patted his back but the rain. 

He didn’t know how much time had passed when it finally stopped raining. That’s when John realized he was holding his gun. The handle was warm so it must have been in John’s grip for some time. He looked at it, his index finger itching. He wondered if he pulled the trigger there, would they bury him on this spot or would Harry insist on putting him in the family plot? He could deal with lying next to Sherlock Holmes for eternity. Feeding the same ground with their remains. How soon would they be forgotten? Probably sooner that John cared to imagine. 

The cold steel of his gun felt so good on his tongue. How would it taste with the copper of his blood? He closed his lips around the barrel and his eyes followed suit. Peace. He felt a sense of peace in his body as he exhaled slowly through his nose, his mind chasing oblivion. 

“John?” came a worried voice that sounded so much like Greg it startled John. Until now, he had only heard Sherlock's voice in his head. 

“John?”, again, as a strong arm squeezed his shoulder and another gently took the gun from his hand. 

“Greg? Are you really here?” John opened his eyes and looked up. He could barely see; his eyes were swollen and the sun shone directly in his face. 

Lestrade looked concerned, “Yeah. I came to visit an old friend.” 

“He’s not really chatty today,” John forced a dry laugh. “He never will be again,” _he wo_ _n’t_ _show off, make inappropriate comments, insult people..._

“I meant you, John,” Greg’s voice broke and he had to clear his throat before continuing. “Would you at least tell me where you live? Molly would like to visit too.” 

Why? Why would anyone want to visit a shell of a man they used to know? Then again, wasn’t it exactly what he had been doing for the past several weeks? Except the shell was marble. John wanted to be made of marble. Maybe he could just have a marble headstone when this was all over. “I just want to be left alone.” Alone is what I have, alone protects me, John heard in his head in a low, velvet voice. He hadn’t agreed with that statement then, but now he was reconsidering his opinion. 

“Let me take you home, John.” Greg’s softly spoken words were annoyingly close. John felt himself being lifted, hands under his armpits and then he moved his feet. Right foot. Left foot. Shuffle. 

He lay in the back of a police car, curled and shivering from being soaked by the rain. He had a blanket on. 

_I’m in shock. Look_ _,_ _I’ve got a blanket._

John closed his eyes, wanting to hear more of the voice inside his head. The disembodied voice, low in sadness but wrapped in a cashmere scarf of exuberance. That voice had been the epitome of Sherlock Holmes and John craved to hear more of it. 

He faintly remembered reciting his new address on the third try after Greg kept telling him it was the wrong one. Because 221B Baker Street wasn’t his home anymore. 

It never would be again. 

\--- 

John was back at home, which felt absolutely nothing like a home. Too many things were wrong and too many things were missing in this place for it to be a home for him. Greg was politely insistent on coming inside and had the decency not to comment on John’s sparse living conditions. He was saying something to which John who was making them cups of tea, nodded even though he couldn’t focus on anything that was being said, and later couldn’t recall a thing they’d talked about. 

  
After Greg left, John went through his usual routines. The delivery boy brought dinner to his door, which he ate without really tasting it. Then he showered to wash the smell of dampness.   


John lay in his narrow bed and tried to sleep. His body longed for rest but his mind was determined to torture him with reality of his empty life. After twenty minutes of inspecting the ceiling in the dark, John threw the duvet off of himself and sat up, reaching for the laptop on the desk. 

He had to watch the video again. He knew every frame of the recording by now, having watched it on a loop for several hours every day. It was something that Lestrade had made on his phone and sent to John’s email. The video was supposed to be funny - Sherlock drugged by Irene, stumbling around and mumbling incoherently. John knew he shouldn’t watch it. Each time he had, it had made him feel even worse. But the urge to see Sherlock alive again was stronger. He hit play and sat through the two-minute video. 

Sherlock’s tall and lean form was swaying and he had one arm over John’s shoulders, leaning on John for support. John was holding his friend, one arm around his waist and the other holding Sherlock’s arm over his neck so he wouldn’t slide in a heap to the ground. Lestrade’s laughter was close to the camera, louder than what Sherlock was saying, but John didn’t need to hear it on the recording. The words were imprinted in his brain. 

“John, what's happening to me?” Sherlock’s voice was trembling, his breaths shallow and fast and his words coming out slurred and in rapid succession. “I need you, John. Please don’t leave me. I can’t see your face... John? I need to see your face.” 

At that John stopped, sat Sherlock at the top of the stairs at Irene’s house and aligned his own face with Sherlock’s. “Sherlock? Look at me.” John’s voice was calm and steady. The last thing he wanted was to scare his friend. “Look straight ahead, I’m right here.” 

“John...” 

Sherlock’s panic subsided as he desperately tried to focus his gaze on John’s face. The smile that tugged Sherlock’s lips told John that it was going to be okay. 

“My John,” Sherlock said in a small voice, his palms travelling to rest on John’s cheeks. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me. You can’t leave me...” Sherlock’s gaze was downturned now, his voice breaking, hands trembling on John’s cheeks. Sherlock swayed back as he started to stand up and John immediately gripped Sherlock tightly again. “I need to lay down. Take me to bed, John. Will you?” John nodded at that and kept dragging Sherlock slowly down the stairs and towards the exit. The video ended there. 

Watching that, John could still remember the impact of the words Sherlock had spoken. John had felt that they had a special friendship even then but he hadn’t realized that the machine of a man was capable of expressing any emotion, let alone towards John. 

He wanted to broach the subject with him within the next couple of days, over wine maybe, but he couldn’t muster the courage to do it. Months later, he tried again but that was when they had found Irene Adler asleep in Sherlock’s bed and John postponed the conversation indefinitely. Sherlock hadn’t seemed to remember what he had said to John that day, and John never told Sherlock about it. 

Nevertheless, their relationship had evolved since that day. A seed was planted in John’s head and it made it easier to pursue Sherlock’s body that memorable night at The Cross Keys hotel in Grimpen Village. 

John had to force himself to close the laptop or he would end up looking through more videos he had there; he had quite the collection of pictures as well. After the Christmas party he saved every picture he received from Greg and Molly to a folder. He had a separate one with pictures of Sherlock alone. He remembered them vividly without opening the folder. 

Some of the pictures were taken when Sherlock wasn’t looking, for example the one where he was sitting by the makeshift lab on the kitchen table bent over the microscope. In other pictures, Sherlock was looking straight at the camera with an exasperated expression on his face, and some pictures showed the detective when he knew he was being photographed but he still kept talking energetically, his hands flying in gestures. 

John liked the photographs of unaware Sherlock the most. They showed the true human behind the genius at least a little. Those were the ones that John found the hardest to look at nowadays. The man in those photos was _his_ Sherlock, not the one the world knew, not the self-proclaimed sociopath, or “freak”, as Sally called him, but a good-hearted, confused individual who put up walls around him to protect himself from harm. John had seen through the façade and had wanted to protect him at all costs so he wouldn’t have to do it all by himself. 

He’d failed. 

The man John had coaxed to open even just a tiny bit, finally started to take down his walls in front of him only to kill himself so soon after. 

John pushed the laptop away and reached for the cardboard box of books he kept under the desk. They were his escape into the fictional world. He picked up a book from the top of the pile and sat down to read it from where it was last bookmarked. 

“ _Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning._ ” What was he reading again? He looked at the cover that said “The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde”. 

“What a load of crap,” he said to himself. He had used to love this book because the love and tragedy spoke to the romantic in him. He read a couple more pages but couldn’t focus on the plot. 

His mind was constantly somewhere else. Most of the time it was standing in front of St Bart’s, begging Sherlock not to jump. 

Even standing there on the pavement, looking up at Sherlock, hearing Sherlock’s voice breaking, John hadn’t been able to accept the reality. Couldn’t believe what he had been hearing. The tears in Sherlock’s voice had made his own throat constrict and eyes water. He had never heard Sherlock so distraught, yet he had still firmly believed it would all end with a grand theatrical flair, but happily. Sherlock’s inclination towards the dramatic often delivered unexpected results. He had been hoping, waiting for Sherlock to reveal his reasons for the charade and they would both laugh about it the next day... 

… 

“Goodbye John” 

Then it happened. In less than a moment John’s world had crumbled. He hoped his eyes were deceiving him. His ears were ringing, the world was spinning. He ran. He ran towards Sherlock. Towards his friend, his … everything. Someone bumped into him. A cyclist. His head hurt. 

_Oh God, Sherlock. I’m coming. Stay alive for me._

Then he was up, his head dizzy, he ran. 

Blood. 

_So much blood. Too much blood. No._

“I’m a doctor. Let me come through!” his words slurred, whether from the hit to his head or the hit to his heart. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. “He’s my friend. Please.” 

Maybe it wasn’t him. 

“Oh Jesus no... God, no...” it was Sherlock. His face, the beautiful lips. Sherlock, broken and bloody, not unlike John’s heart. 

Broken. 

John didn’t remember how he had come back to the Baker Street. He sat on his chair for what must have been a long time. Every little detail around reminded him of Sherlock. 

The stairs, the room, the chair, the skull. 

He knew then that he couldn’t stay. 

Sitting there, John realised that there was so much he had still wanted to tell Sherlock. Things he had never had the courage to express in words. Now his chance was gone. 

He reached for Sherlock’s scarf draped over the arm of the black chair in front of him, lifted it to his nose and inhaled the scent he knew so well and was painfully aware that he’d miss for the rest of his life. He felt wetness on his cheek. He hadn’t realised he was crying but wiped the wetness with his palm only to see it red. 

His face was stained with his best friend’s blood. He must have touched it with his bloodied hands after he had been grappling to reach for Sherlock’s broken from the fall body. John closed his eyes and enjoyed the softness of the scarf on his cheek and the scent that brought his heart so much pain he could barely breathe. 

He put the scarf into his jacket pocket only when he realised where he could get enveloped in Sherlock’s essence once more. John all but ran into Sherlock’s bedroom taking off his jacket as he went. He tossed it on the chair just inside the room and toed off his shoes before he stopped to take a look at the bed. 

It was neatly made and he would have hated to mess it up in case Sherlock came back to find it messy. But he wouldn’t come back. 

Not ever again. 

John slid in between the rich Egyptian cotton sheets, much softer than the ones on his own bed and imagined Sherlock on the other side of the bed. His friend’s naked form curled in a foetal position waiting to be cuddled, waiting for John’s warmth to envelop him. He remembered the first time they had laid like this, his arm around Sherlock’s waist, his fingertips grazing the detective’s abdomen, his breathing in synch with the rise and fall of his friend’s chest. 

It was Mrs. Hudson who found him the next morning sleeping in Sherlock’s bed. He scrambled off it, his face red to his hairline and walked off to his bedroom upstairs. 

That was the last time he had seen the flat. He couldn’t bring himself to go back again. He probably would never be able to. He found cheap accommodation he was able to afford on his army pension making sure nobody knew his new address. He took only the most necessary items with him from 221B. 

  
John never understood why he felt that he had to torture himself but one day he was walking past St. Bart’s Hospital reliving the heart-breaking moments, looking at the sidewalk where Sherlock had lain, bloody and broken, when he bumped into Molly Hooper. She gave him some of Sherlock’s coat and a box of his belongings. What a bloody stupid idea that was, and he had told her just that, then apologized as she almost started crying on the spot. John accepted the remnants of his friend’s life but couldn’t look at the box for days. Now it still rested at the bottom of the small wardrobe on the other side of the room. It rested under the coat. 

THE coat. 

\- 

Sherlock’s coat was hanging next to his clothes in the wardrobe. As if he was about to barge through the door any second and demand it back, all the while laughing at John for being such an idiot and believing he was dead. 

“Please do it,” John whispered to the empty room, “please don’t be dead.” 

For the first few weeks, John was certain that it must have been some elaborate plan to get rid of Moriarty and any day, any bloody day, Sherlock would just knock on his door. Because it had to be a trick. John refused to believe what he’d seen with his own eyes. Sherlock couldn’t be dead. That was impossible. The world needed him. John needed him. Throughout the sleepless nights, he used to wake up yelling Sherlock’s name in panic, only to realize the reality was even worse than his nightmares. 

John kept going to all the places Sherlock used to hide when he wanted to be alone, places he went when he wanted to think or when he simply wanted to disappear. He walked along the streets they had run together the first time, the roofs of old London buildings, through the neighbourhoods from their cases; every single place he could think of. He even checked the park, each nook and cranny along the paths they used to take when they went for walks from time to time. Then he realized, that if Sherlock had been hiding, the homeless network would be aware of that. He tried talking to them, passing money with notes saying ‘have you seen Sherlock Holmes?” but to no avail. 

John moved on to online searches for people who had studied with Sherlock and started calling people from his University years, one by one asking about Sherlock, if they had any idea where he could be hiding. Some of them hadn’t even known Sherlock had died and most offered derogatory remarks. But John hadn’t given up, he’d called every single person in the online search results who had any ties to Sherlock in the past. All that searching made him realize how lonely Sherlock must have been all his life. He wondered initially what would a genius like Sherlock be doing with an army doctor as a friend. But he was his only friend as it happened. Sherlock had been John’s only close friend as well. He had been hopeful to find a trace of Sherlock, a proof that he was still alive for so long it started to wear him down. 

\- 

That sentiment intensified when he bumped into that Wilkes bloke from the bank as he walked in the city. He didn’t recognize John at first, then when the recognition hit him, he apologised with a fake smile on his face. 

“My deepest condolences, but surely you expected that to happen sooner or later. We used to bet how long Sherlock would survive in the real world. He was bound to end his life, even the psych students said so and they had loved to poke him about it. Everybody hated him and he still kept insulting everyone. He thought he was so clever.” 

John remembered vividly, and for quite some time afterwards, the ache in his bloody hand when he’d spent the whole night in jail after punching Wilkes in the chin. It might have been both fists and not only in the face. It had felt good though, it would have been worth a week in jail if that’s what it took. 

That had been the moment John had stopped looking for Sherlock, or at least he had stopped doing it actively. Every time he went out, he would see a long coat from the corner of his eye, but it had always been someone else. He would get angry then, go to a pub and have a drink. He didn’t hold his liquor well enough to keep it up. If he didn’t end up sleeping on the bar until they told him to leave, he started a fight. Someone looked at him the wrong way or bumped into him and John reacted violently, punching men next to him, often yelling Sherlock’s name in the process. 

After the initial few punches, he would stop fighting and wait for the assault of fists on him, relishing the pain in his body. The physical pain was a far better feeling than the one deep inside. But the pain in his chest didn’t go away even as the pain in his body subsided over the following days. He quickly realized that was not the way to deal with his loss. 

He started to feel guilty for being so angry. Angry with Sherlock for leaving him. Angry with Moriarty for accusing Sherlock of being a fraud. And where did that get him? 

Hell. 

It got him a first-class ticket to hell. 

\- 

A hell where hot flames licked his mind, forcing him to ask himself questions he was unable to answer. John started to analyse what he might have done wrong or what he could have done to prevent the tragic outcome.   
  
If only they could have stopped Moriarty before he destroyed Sherlock’s reputation. If John had been a bigger help. If he had stayed with Sherlock at St. Bart’s that day... 

If if if. 

He should have told Sherlock he was needed, important. No, that John needed him, that he was important to _John_ , that he was such an enormous part of his life. His heart. God, why had he never said it? Why hadn’t he told Sherlock that he felt more than friendship and between them? 

Yes, there was the hot, needy sex, but clearly, Sherlock could separate the physical part of their friendship and stay just mates. John didn’t know what he could or couldn’t feel anymore. But it was there. It was very difficult for him to speak about his emotions. He wasn’t good at it and neither had Sherlock been. This was the same Sherlock who once said he was able to “divorce himself from feelings”.   
  
They were doomed to forever not knowing because they had been too damn stubborn and too proud to admit it. If only he had said something, so Sherlock would have known. Maybe he would have stayed. 

Sherlock used weird phrasing sometimes, like “as long as you let me” or “as long as you’ll stay”. Had he been worried that John would leave him? Why would he have been? He never said as much but then again, he never said anything emotional pertaining to both of them.   
  
Sherlock had been alone before meeting John, they both had. That’s why they worked so well together, filling a void for each other, adding something the other one lacked. Was Sherlock so afraid that John would believe that he had been a fraud the whole time and leave him? Was that why he’d jumped? But John had told him that he had known Moriarty had lied. If only John had been able to convince him better, reassured Sherlock that he believed in him, that he had never doubted him. 

Because Sherlock had been that clever. 

Now John was alone. That wasn’t fair. God, it wasn’t fair. Sherlock had left him. 

ALONE. 

He briefly considered giving Sherlock’s 7 percent solution a shot. Was it possible it could make him feel like Sherlock had during his bad days? Would it make John feel closer to Sherlock? 

John knew where Sherlock used to get his cocaine and after a day of wandering the city, he came back with needle, saline, powder and syringe in a plastic bag in addition to the powder he purchased for cash. He looked at the whole set and wondered if it was a step too far, even in his desperate for Sherlock state. He was aware of the dangers from a medical perspective, on top of that, like every drug, it could have varied effects on individuals. 

He considered taking the risk anyway. 

He sat contemplating the notion for hours before finally deciding against it. 

\--- 

John’s time spent reminiscing on his first months without his mate didn’t lift his spirits in the slightest. 

He stood up and took the few steps between the chair he was sitting in and the wardrobe. Upon opening it, he slid his finger along the sleeve of the long coat which brought up so many memories. 

John took Sherlock’s coat out of the wardrobe. It still smelled like him, or at least John kept telling himself that was the case after it had been hanging in the wardrobe for so long. He pulled it around his shoulders and inhaled the scent at the turned-up collar. His eyes fluttered close and he moved to lie on the bed. 

It was so easy to imagine himself lying down now and never getting up. Wrapped in Sherlock’s scent for all eternity. John remembered the day they had met so vividly, it seemed as if it had been the day before. He thought of the first time he’d heard Sherlock explain his deductions about John in the back of a cab. He had marvelled at his future flatmate’s intelligence but little had he known then, it had been just the tip of a Sherlock-shaped iceberg. 

The smell of the coat recalled memories of John wrapping his arms around Sherlock soon after they had made the sheets sticky at The Cross Keys Inn at Baskerville. He had smelled Sherlock's hair and his skin slightly damp with sweat and committed them to memory. 

John moaned into the coat he was hugging, and his hand travelled down and into his pants. He remembered how hot Sherlock’s mouth had felt on his cock, how he’d growled while licking his shaft. John imagined his best friend with him, caressing his body, his thighs, his sac. Looking at him with those slightly slanted, impossibly beautiful eyes as he wrapped his soft lips around John’s cock. John’s hand started moving in a pumping rhythm as the memories flooded his mind. 

He needed it, he needed the release as if it was the help he had been waiting for. The effect Sherlock had on John’s body never wavered, even after the detective’s death. John’s breath became as quick as his heartbeat, the muscles in his legs straining as his hand moved faster, chafing his sensitive skin, chasing the orgasm in a desperate search for a positive emotion. 

The release came as a disappointment. Afterwards, John was disgusted with himself as he lay under Sherlock's coat, now stained with his come. He felt even worse than before. This wasn’t him, this couldn’t be his life. No longer. He closed his eyes again and drifted into nightmare-filled slumber as the wetness on his cheeks was absorbed by the collar of the coat that he had wrapped himself in. 

\--- 

The next morning, he knew that he was ready to start anew. He should try to go back to work, to the clinic. They were always short of staff and surely, they could use a doctor. They’d take him. All the broken, barely-glued-together pieces of him, but they would. If he had been unable to help Sherlock, he could at least help other people with their twisted ankles, sore throats and itchy rashes. 

It had been 18 months since that dreadful day. John was ready to see his therapist. Or so he hoped. 

\--- 

“Why today?” Ella asked to John’s chagrin. 

“Do you want to hear me say it?” John thought he was ready for this conversation with his therapist but sitting in the chair and facing the nightmares plaguing his mind, he was starting to regret his decision to come here. 

“Eighteen months since our last appointment.” 

“You read the papers?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“And you watch telly? You know why I’m here. I’m here because...” John’s voice broke with the intensity of the raw emotion tearing at his heart. 

“What happened, John?” 

John made a sound at the back of his throat to keep the tears away, took a deep breath... “Sher...” he took another breath that did little to calm his emotions. 

“You need to get it out.” 

“My best friend, Sherlock Holmes...” John’s voice came out small, unlike his own. He sniffled before continuing, “...is dead.” 

John put his face in the palms of his hands and breathed deeply, which wasn’t easy with his throat constricting to the point of pain. He tried not to blink as he straightened his back, placed his palms on his knees and exhaled slowly. 

“I think I’m ready,” he said in a slightly steadier voice than before. 

“What are you ready for?” 

“To stop dying...” 

“Is that what you feel you’ve been doing?” 

“Yes. I’ve felt like I’m dying the whole time,” John admitted through his teeth. 

“Did you write anything in your blog?” 

“It’s supposed to be about my life. You know what was in my blog. My life is dead.” The truth of that statement hit him like a freight train just when he thought he was doing so much better. 

“I wish you had come to me sooner. How have you been dealing with the loss so far?” 

“I haven't.” John thought back to his sleepless nights and dull days. The feeling of emptiness and complete lack of purpose. 

“How do you feel about that?” 

“I feel like shit,” he looked up at his therapist realising what he just said. “Sorry. I’m … just…disappointed.” 

"How so?” 

“I’m disappointed in myself. I should be doing something productive. I thought about going back to work. The clinic, that is.” 

“Are you sure that you’re ready?” 

“No. I don’t think I am but I can’t just cross the days off on the calendar not remembering that a month or two or five have passed because all my days are the same.” 

“Do you have suicidal thoughts?” 

“No. Not anymore.” John looked at his hands. “That's a lie. But not as often as before.” 

“How often did it happen before?” Ella’s voice was steady and patient as usual. 

_Every day, every_ _hour, eve_ _ry_ _minute._ “Quite often,” was what he said out loud. 

“John, you suffer from PTSD” 

“But I don’t have nightmares from the war anymore.” 

“Seeing your friend take his own life in front of you is almost certainly as traumatic as the war. For you, it might have been worse. You have been through a personal war for the past 18 months and you have come back alive. That is something to celebrate.” 

“I don’t feel like celebrating that.” 

“Do you keep in contact with your friends?” 

“They called... after...you know. But I didn’t want to see anyone. Then I gave Greg my address and they started visiting. At least when I opened the door to them.” 

“How do you feel about that?” 

“I think just now I'm realising what a complete dick I have been to them. They lost a friend too. I need to call Molly, and Greg. I need to call the clinic and see if they will take me back.” 

“That’s a good idea, John. If you feel ready, you should do it. Who knows maybe you’ll meet someone? 

John forced a dry laugh. “Who would want a broken man like me...?” He looked at his hands and squeezed them into fists. 

_Who’d want me for a flatmate?_

_\------_

**Author's Note:**

> Music for this fic:  
> [Lux Aeterna - composed by Clint Mansell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVIRcnlRKF8)  
> [Lux Aeterna - composed by Clint Mansell live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZMuDbaXbC8&index=3&list=RDDuFj8EsJJ8I)  
> [Beethoven's Silence - Ernesto Cortazar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFD2PPAqNbw&index=2&list=RDDuFj8EsJJ8I)  
> [Gone Away - The Offspring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d3AqlKfXbE)  
> [Everybody Knows - Sigrid version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKs1HA7E3sM)  
> Note about John reading Oscar Wilde:  
> ACD and Wilde were acquaintances since before A Sign of Four and The Picture of Dorian Gray. ([Reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rPsjdMEvbk)  
> ) ACD was a fan of Wilde’s, and even after Wilde was on trial for his homosexuality, ACD hadn’t explicitly condemned his behaviour. 
> 
> That leaves us fans speculating that ACD was not a homophobe himself and shedding some light on the possibility of him writing Holmes and Watson as being in a gay relationship. However, he couldn’t do so explicitly as he would probably face the same fate as did Wilde for his works/conduct. Therefore, by keeping Watson and Holmes as platonic friends, ACD avoided a possible prison sentence. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a beautiful book for which Wilde was criticized when it came to Gray’s immoral behaviour. Also, it’s one of my personal favourites and I’m sure John would be acquainted with it, as he quoted one of Wilde’s works in the show before in The Final Problem. John referenced Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest clarifying that was where the quote “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” Mycroft had used before comes from, saying he remembered the play from school.
> 
> Further reading:  
> Even though the following fics were not written as parts of this series they fit in the timeline here so can be read after this story to fill in the gaps before Chapter 11:  
> [Red on White](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581554)  
> [Photograph of Captain Watson](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16257416)  
> 


End file.
